Christmas in Sarajevo...

Love Thy Neighbour, A STORY OF WAR by Peter Maass

Peter Maass had returned to Sarajevo for Christmas. He was driven in by a veteran war correspondent named David, who was the first to volunteer to run supply missions to Kiseljak. David was driving a Land Rover with the back seat full of cans of gasoline. He was on a fuel run, through checkpoints, past snipers and  remote areas with roving bandits. The last stretch into Sarajevo had to be driven fast to avoid getting shot at. Finally they arrived in Sarajevo and drove down Sniper Alley. In the corner of his eye he noticed a sign on a bullet-pocked wall, "Welcome to Hell". David drove to the Holiday Inn, located along Sniper Alley. The building's south side faced the Serbs, so it was shot up beyond habitation. The northern side was the safest, the rate, $62 per night, including breakfast, lunch and dinner. The power was out, it was bitter cold, the elevators didn't work but the toilet had the infamous white strip of paper that said, "Sanitized for Your Protection". It was the place in town where all the foreign press stayed.

At dinner, Peter met up with another journalist, a Scotsman named Kevin and his interpreter, Dzemal. Peter writes on page 125:

"Dzemal was a classic Bosnian. A Muslim, he had been to many more bars in his lifetime than mosques, and his girlfriend was a Catholic from Croatia."

On page 129 Peter writes:

     "Kevin and I wanted to write a story about a Catholic family's Christmas in Sarajevo, so Dzemal, ever so resourceful, found the Pelzl family and got us invited to their home. Karlo and Janja Pelzl were Croats, members of the Catholic strand of Sarajevo's complex fabric of nationalities and religions, which even included a vibrant Jewish community that settled in the city in the fifteenth century after being expelled from Spain by the Inquisition. If you were a troublemaker who wanted to destroy a city that, more than any in Europe, was a symbol of integration and tolerance, you would do well to pick Sarajevo. You could find, on virtually the same block, a Muslim mosque, Roman Catholic cathedral, Christian Orthodox church and Jewish synagogue. The people of Sarajevo----Muslims, Serbs, Croats, Jews, Albanians, Gypsies and a kaleidoscope of mixtures therein----lived in Europe's truest melting pot.
      There is a tradition in Sarajevo that people of different religions visit one another on religious holidays. On Christmas, the Pelzls' Muslim and Serb friends would come by for a visit. In return, the Pelzls would visit Muslim friends on the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, and visit Serb friends on Orthodox Christmas, which falls in January. Kevin, Dzemal and I were part of the parade of visitors who stopped by the Pelzl household on Christmas Day. After shedding our flak jackets at their doorstep, we sat down at their dining table and were served a platter of sweets, which were unimaginable delicacies under the circumstances."